Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the use of a catalyst based on antimony and iron to catalyse the production of nitriles, in particular of acrylonitrile, and also to a process for the production of nitriles, in particular acrylonitrile, in the gas phase, in the presence of such a catalyst.
Description of Related Art
Propenenitrile (CH2═CH—C≡N), more commonly known as acrylonitrile, is a starting material which can be used as monomer in the preparation of many polymers in organic chemistry, in particular textile fibres, such as acrylic fibres, nylon or of synthetic rubber or else of nitrogen-comprising elastomers, after copolymerization with butadiene, or else again of high performance solid resins (acrylonitrile/butadiene/styrene (ABS) resins), after copolymerization with butadiene and styrene.
The industrial production of acrylonitrile is today dependent on propene or propane, which are both compounds resulting from fossil resources. Specifically, the synthesis of acrylonitrile is usually carried out according to the “Sohio” process (from the name of the company Standard Oil of Ohio), developed in the 1960s and as described, for example, in Patent Application GB 709 337. This process consists in carrying out the oxidation of propene in the presence of ammonia (ammoxidation) according to the following reaction:

This reaction is carried out in the gas phase in a fluidized bed reactor, at high temperature, generally at 350-400° C., in the absence of water and in the presence of a catalyst based on bismuth and molybdenum.
However, this process exhibits the disadvantage of employing propene, the cost price of which is always increasing.